Love is Love

This summer I had the chance to complete one of the tasks on my Bucket List. I attended The Toronto Pride Parade with a few of my closest friends. Initially, I wanted to attend the parade because I was curious to see what it was about- especially because Toronto celebrates Pride Week in such a fantastic way. Although this is something that I have always wanted to do, I am glad I waited until the near end of my university career because I was able to witness the parade from the stance of an International Development student and an advocate for pluralism.

Watching the parade was like no other. Besides all the glitzy costumes (or lack of costumes) and loud music, was a collective expression for love that goes beyond gender, race, and sexuality. It was amazing to see people representing different countries, religions, places of work, ethnicities, and sexual orientations as advocates for the right to love whoever they choose too.

Marriage and love equality tie into a lot of development issues that are faced in the Global North. There is a lack of awareness regarding same sex marriages and relations that lead to the spread of diseases. In many cultures and countries, people are killed if they deviate from societal and cultural norms. Therefore education and the spread of knowledge regarding these issues are key facets towards eradicating the stigma associated with gender, love, and marriage inequalities around the world.

The biggest affirmation I had from attending the parade was that love is love regardless of any orientation. Unfortunately we don’t live in a world where we can love freely. But once upon a time, we also lived in a world where people of different races could not attend the same school, or get married and where woman were not allowed to vote. Some of these things might seem irrational today, but back then they were just as controversial as love equality is today. However, progress has been made on many of these issues, and I believe that love and marriage equality have the potential to be recognized by everyone through a pluralistic outlook that involves open dialogue and acceptance.

Intergenerational Equity

International Development can be defined as creating a sustainable lifestyle for all human beings that increases their social and economic opportunities. It is a lifestyle that promotes freedom of choice. In order to improve the quality of life of the impoverished, many changes need to be made and many problems need to be overcome such as alleviating poverty, adapting to climate change, protecting our natural resources, promoting education etc. Sounds like something that you have heard before? 

International Development issues have become a common occurrence that hardly any new statistic, advert, or cause, strikes a nerve. Unfortunately, poverty and hunger have become so common that when you travel to a country that has extreme poverty, or learn about a new tragedy in the news, you more often than not brush it off because these things seem to always be happening, and they are never going to end. How many of us actually follow up on some of these calamities after the news channels stop reporting on them? The negative results of Hurricane Katrina, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Tsunami that took place of the coast of Japan are still in effect. I don't blame us for feeling this way. You may have been more excited or concerned with fixing International Development issues in the past, after hearing about campaigns such as the Kyoto Protocol or the Millennium Development Goals that were widely promoted as the cure for development issues. But after constant failure you might have lost hope and even concern for these problems. 

So let me remind you why working towards solving development issues is important. It is imperative in order to create intergenerational equity. Intergenerational equity refers to the responsibility of the current generation to preserve their living space and create a sustainable lifestyle that can be used by future generations. Our current actions impact the lifestyle of future generations, this means your children, and their children and many generations after that. If we continue to live in a world where poverty and environmental degradation prevail, imagine the world our kin will be subjected to live in. We are accountable for our actions and how we treat our planet. Remember this the next time you take the car to work instead of the bus, or the next time you leave the water running while brushing your teeth, or the next time you hear about a fatal tragedy.If nothing else, think about your families. Your parents and forefathers must have sacrificed and worked so hard for you to be able to live the life you are living today, so we need to be mindful of our actions to ensure intergenerational equity for future generations. It is your responsibility! 

Bottled Water: Scam?

I have never understood the concept of bottled water in the Global North. In the Global South it is a necessity due to the inaccessibility of clean water. But here in the North, where the water that comes out of our taps is free and safe, I fail to understand why people buy bottled water which costs 2000 times more. Some people say it tastes better, I think I need to get my taste buds checked because I can not tell the difference. Some people say the quality is of a higher standard because it comes from some exotic natural spring but are you really sure about that? I think its all a big scam and here is why.

We live in a world where advertising is everywhere. It plays into our emotions and desires and it is defiantly one of the major driving forces of the economy. In the 1970's, giant soft drink companies such as Coca Cola and Pepsi realized that their growth projections were starting to level off and they were in need of the next big product. The health craze was just around the corner, and people were soon going to realize how unhealthy soda is, which would result in more people drinking free tap water. So what did these mega corporations do? They manufactured demand through advertising. First they manipulated people's insecurities by undermining the city's purification procedures. Second they seduced consumers by using marketing techniques such as pictures of luscious mountain streams to make people believe that is the source of the water that they are consuming. But in reality, most bottled water such as Dasani and Aquafina are actually tap water. 

So what's the big deal if you don't mind spending your money on a product that you can acquire at no cost? Its your money after all. Well producing bottled water has many detrimental effects on our environment. The amount of oil that is used to produce plastic bottles in the U.S is enough to fuel millions of cars. Disposal is another huge concern. Have you ever thought about where your bottles end up? Most of them either end up in landfills where they take thousands of years to decompose, or they are burned in an incinerator which releases toxic pollution that affects the entire globe. Most developing countries do not have access to clean water because of polluting industries such as bottled water companies, and as a result the water crisis is rampant. Did you know that more people have access to a phone than clean water? Water is a basic human right that should be available to all. Sadly the cost of just one case of bottled water could supply a person in Africa with clean, safe drinking water for a year.

The choice is yours. If you live in an area where clean water is inaccessible then you have a right to bottled water, otherwise there is simply no excuse. If we continue to buy into fads such as these, who knows if we will be buying air in the near future. Sounds pretty delusional don't you think? Well this is no different!  

Source: http://thewaterproject.org/bottled_water.asp#.UU5HxaXU5SU

Lollipop Moments- A New Take on Leadership

As idealistic as this may sound, I want to change the world.This may sound cliché coming from an International Development student, but it is the aim of all 'indev' students in some shape or form. I started this program believing that changing the world meant eradicating poverty and that I would acquire the skills to create significant changes, that benefit the impoverished on a large scale. I hoped that I would one day be a great leader who would change the world. But after three years of university I've realized that I can't change the world as I had hoped because in our world, some level of poverty will always exist. Therefore my interpretation of becoming a great leader has changed. 
  
I recently watched a TEDx video by Drew Dudley entitled 'Leading with Lollipops' (click here to watch the video). Drew talks about what it means to be a leader. He says that we have made leadership into something bigger than us. We have made it about changing the world.We spend so much time celebrating things that are almost impossible for the average person to accomplish, that we are convinced that those are the only things worth celebrating, and we start to devalue the things that we can do everyday that truly makes us leaders. These everyday moments are what he calls lollipop moments- a moment when someone said something or did something that fundamentally made your life better. How many times have you experienced a moment like this? Even if you can only remember being on the receiving end of a lollipop moment, I am sure that we have all had a positive impact on someone's life. These moments are true leadership moments but as long as we continue to uphold leadership as something that is beyond us and about changing the world, we are making excuses not to expect it from ourselves in our personal and professional lives on a daily basis.

We have made leadership about changing the world, but the world is simply six billion different understandings, so as long as we can change one persons understanding of what they are capable of, how important they are, and how powerful an agent for change they can be, you have changed everything. Leadership is about valuing the impact that we can have on each other's lives that is greater than money, power, influences, and titles.

My goal is still to change the world and become a great leader but in a different way. My aim is to create as many lollipop moments as I can with the people that I will be interacting with on my upcoming field placement. I hope to inspire them to multiply this effect and create positive change.